Hi Pilgrim and Johnny
I think a lot of this thread turns on semantics – different people mean different things by ‘love’, ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ (and there is actually probably more agreement than disagreement – despite what is suggested by the voting tallies).
What I mean when I say I ‘like’ someone is that I actually delight in something about them, I feel relaxed in their company, I want to draw close to them in friendship.
When I say I ‘dislike’ – and I very seldom dislike people - it usually means that I am aware of a manipulative, destructive, self seeking intent in that person; and I feel very cautious about drawing close to them or relaxing in their company because I know I need to be very cautious (although some say ‘you should keep your friends close and your enemies even close if you are canny’)
When I say I ‘love’ someone – in the sense of ‘agape’ – I mean that I feel the common bond of humanity with that person (in all the complexity of knowing that the person is created in the image of God, like myself, is a sinner, like myself, and is loved by God , like myself). And even if I dislike a person – for the reasons I have given above – I can still hope for them, and act towards them with good will and without intent to harm.
What I don’t mean by ‘dislike’ is a self righteous appraisal of a another child of God as somehow a lesser being than me who I am able to feel a cold contempt for because I feel they need to be more like me in order to be OK.
I’ve worked with people who have committed horrible crimes. Indeed my dear old colleague who taught me most of what know about community education actually taught Myra Hindley the child killer (she told me that Myra Hidley was actually a rather anxious student, over concerned that her essays were pleasing to teacher, and scrupulous about producing work on time. A thing that made the relationship difficult at first for my colleague was that she was a young Mum with young children when she taught Myra Hindley – but she said she soon forgot about this and just got on with teaching her and trying to get the best out of her). However, I think if I or my colleague had actually had our children killed by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady we would be entitled to feel dislike and we would be on a journey for this to be transformed into another type f relating that might take eternity for completion.
I’ve only ever met one real socio-path. He was a powerful man – the head of an executive training company – and immensely charming; but he destroyed people who thwarted his will. His sister who was a friend of mine disagreed with him over how best to care for their mother who had senile dementia, and he set about destroying her because of this using all the techniques of getting her in a hot temper and then forwarding passionate emails from her to lawyers etc that he could muster (and he had the money to do this stuff – which she hadn’t got). Basically he kept threatening law suits against her – and although these were groundless is made her live in a constant state of fear; tried to isolate her from her extended family by sending his legal threats to all of them, and tried to prevent her from visiting her mother (to whom she was very close – which he wasn’t) as an unfit person. I never confronted him directly - you don’t confront someone like him head on if you want to really help a person who is suffering because of them – but I gave her continuing support with her legal case when the slew of threatening letters and manipulative ploys to wind her up happened, and often did acted as go between with social services when she was in a panic (I’ve had a bit of experience of this from work). Well my friend – who wasn’t a strong person – died of cancer at the young age of 48, two years in to this horrible and undignified fracas (but she did find faith in Christ before she died).
I don’t often think of her brother much now, but I wouldn’t want him close to me, and would find it hard to delight in his company if he’s still the same person. I’d never try to retaliate against him by defaming him or whatever, and I still hope for him. I cannot judge him ultimately for his behaviour – I cannot assess the secret story of his heart – but I don’t like what he did and what he is probably still capable of.
All the best
Dick
, where you are coming from. You make some excellent points, many of which I am in agreement with. If you will bear with me, I will come back to you as soon as I can with a detailed response - I need to give what you say some more thought first, and tease out those areas where, perhaps, we may still differ in our opinions.